On Thursday, October 15, Wall Street had already closed when Elon Musk unveiled a prototype of a flying Tesla Roadster, powered by SpaceX technology. On Hyperliquid, however, the Tesla contract went from 2.8 to 47 million dollars in volume within an hour, a rise of around 1580% reported by CoinDesk. The episode illustrates a broader phenomenon: a night exchange has taken root outside the traditional venues, on a blockchain.

A perpetual contract, not a share

What trades on Hyperliquid is not Tesla stock itself. It is a perpetual contract: a leveraged bet, with no expiry date, that tracks the price of an asset without ever holding it. The Tesla contract is listed by Trade.xyz on Hyperliquid, a decentralized exchange (DEX). It settles in USDC, a dollar-backed stablecoin, accepts leverage of up to 20 times and trades 24 hours out of 24, without a brokerage account.

The general mechanism is well known in crypto: with no expiry, the contract's price is kept as close as possible to that of the tracked asset through regular adjustments between buyers and sellers. What is new is the underlying asset. It is no longer just bitcoin or ether, but shares and commodities, traded at hours Wall Street does not offer.

After Musk's announcement, the contract climbed 4.9%, to around 378 dollars, while the stock had closed at 362.44 dollars. It was its second-biggest day since its launch a year ago. Over twenty-four hours, Hyperliquid handled 159 million dollars on Tesla, compared with 279 million at Binance, according to RootData. But with 99 million dollars in open interest, that is, open positions, Hyperliquid's Tesla contract holds the largest outstanding position across all platforms.

Oil, the first test of 24h trading

This reflex was born on the barrel. In late February 2026, the first strikes on Iran came over a weekend, when the CME and the NYSE were closed. Traders turned to Trade.xyz's oil contract, which replicates the price of a barrel of WTI. In mid-March, this contract peaked at nearly 1.7 billion dollars in daily volume, according to Fortune, or around 250 times its level before the strikes.

On Sunday, April 12, Donald Trump ordered the naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. On Hyperliquid, the WTI perpetual jumped 7%, to 96.40 dollars, and turned over 1.53 billion dollars. It became the platform's third-largest market, behind bitcoin and ether. Over the whole month of April, oil there exceeded 700 million dollars in average daily volume, according to Bloomberg.

According to a TD Securities study reported by CoinDesk on June 2, Hyperliquid priced in around 80% of WTI's subsequent move even before the CME reopened. At weekends, part of the oil price is now formed on a blockchain.

Reference price, liquidity, framework: the limits

These figures say one thing: there is real demand for a continuously open market that reacts to information the moment it breaks. They do not say that this overnight price is the right one. The Tesla example shows it. On Friday, the stock ended the session down 2.1%, dragged down by the rout in tech stocks. The overnight buyers at 378 dollars paid for their enthusiasm.

Several risks emerge from the analysis:

  • The reference price. The contract tracks an asset whose main market is closed. During those hours, the price is formed solely among the platform's participants, without the counterweight of the official quotation. The reliability of this price also matters for those who reuse it, as we saw with Papertrade and the price borrowed from Hyperliquid.
  • Liquidity. A volume that goes from 2.8 to 47 million in an hour can fall back just as quickly. With leverage of up to 20 times, a modest price gap is enough to liquidate a position.
  • The regulatory framework. Access without a broker can bypass the usual investor protections. In May, the CME and ICE warned the CFTC and the US Congress about risks of manipulation and sanctions evasion.

Two readings therefore coexist. For some, Hyperliquid discovers the price earlier, as the TD Securities study on oil suggests. For others, this price remains that of a narrow and lightly regulated market, which the official session can contradict, as with Tesla on Friday.

Traditional exchanges facing continuous trading

Established venues have responded on two fronts. Besides the warning sent to the US authorities, the CME announced that its bitcoin futures would move to continuous trading, seven days a week.

This concerns every exchange with fixed trading hours, SIX included. For an investor in Switzerland, the stakes are concrete: when news breaks after the close, a first price can now form elsewhere, on a platform outside the conventional stock exchange framework, before the main venue reopens.

The next test is known. Tesla publishes its quarterly results on Wednesday, October 21. If the figures come out after Wall Street closes, the first price should once again come from Hyperliquid. This is a projection, not a finding: nothing says which direction that price will take or whether it will hold until the open.

Sources

  • Journal du Coin: "Tesla, pétrole : Hyperliquid devient la bourse de nuit de Wall Street"